A joint effort being conducted by Microsoft and Pfizer are attempting to put a stop, or at least a dent, in the enormous amounts of Viagra-based spam mailings.
Specifically, the two corporate giants are executing a two-pronged attack, with Pfizer targeting Viagra counterfeiters. Microsoft, on the other hand, is aiming their legal team at spammers offering generic versions of the pill. The two companies filed 17 lawsuits against suspected fake Viagra producers and spammers.
According to Spamfo.co.uk, “Pfizer has filed suits against two sites, CanadianPharmacy and E-Phamarcy Direct, and actions against 10 other domain names using the Viagra brand. Microsoft filed civil actions against the spammers who send out junk emails to promote the sites.”
Yesterday, Microsoft posted an interview conducted by PressPass with representatives of each company, including two members of Microsoft’s Internet Safety Enforcement team, Attorney Aaron Kornblum and Senior Investigator Stirling McBride, as well as Pfizer Chief Corporate Counsel Marc Brotman.
They were asked about the alliance with Pfizer and the joint investigation that led to today’s anti-spam lawsuits.
“We felt we could fight back on the sale and advertising of the products, but our problem was that we didn’t feel we had a good way of stopping the spammers. Then I happened to read a newspaper article about how aggressive Microsoft had been in battling spam, and was one of the leading companies in fighting the spam problem,” said Marc Brotman. “So it made sense – Pfizer is an advanced company in fighting illegal generics and counterfeit drugs on the Internet, and Microsoft is advanced in the fight against spam, so jointly we could achieve more than we could separately.”
Kornblum explained the idea behind the different lawsuits by saying, “Our efforts together have led to a combined total of 17 lawsuits today against pharmacy-related defendants by the two companies. Each company filed parallel lawsuits against two separate international spam rings. Microsoft is suing each ring for alleged illegal spamming, and concurrently, Pfizer is suing each of these rings for trademark infringement and dilution, and unfair competition.”
The lawsuits were filed only after a thorough investigation The defendants are accused of violating the Can-Spam act and other federal and state laws.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
